6 Ways Sony Can Maintain PSN as the Gold Standard on the PS4

4) Indie Developer Access

The PS3 has its share of indie darlings, especially with the smashing success of Journey this year and a lot of games that started on the Xbox have since made their way over onto Sony’s console like Castle Crashers and Limbo. However, indie developers often start with and stick with the Xbox simply given their openness to work with those smaller companies and promoting their games. This seems to be in the process of being remedied with the advent of PlayStation Mobile and how open it seems to be, but it’s far from on par with what Microsoft can boast on their platform.

That bar may very well be burned into my television screen.

3) Efficiency and Speed

Anyone that owns a PS3 can admit to hating this one: it takes forever to do anything. A large majority of games require you to install them to the PS3, which can often take several minutes. If you’re playing a game that’s been out for a while, you might as well go fix yourself something to eat because it will need to not only download all of those inevitable patches, but also install them. This is all in addition to the frequent Firmware updates you will experience on the PS3 and the time it takes to really do anything, like I mentioned in the previous point.

Case in point: the night Skyrim came out. My roommate and I both got the game and put it into our respective gaming consoles of choice, me a PS3, he a 360. He and I had both been anticipating the release of this game for weeks, nay, months. To this day, it remains the greatest game launch experience of my life and I have never been that excited over a video game before. Long story short: before my game was done patching and installing, he was almost through the opening cinematic and into character creation. PS4 can’t be like that.

2) Security

Anybody who’s anybody’s friend in the entire universe has heard about the PSN outage. It is essentially the largest and most publicized gaming catastrophe this generation – for good reason. Not only were users locked out of using a large majority of their beloved console’s features for week, many users had their private and sensitive financial information stolen. This includes personal details and even credit card numbers. I’m not saying that there is anything that really could have been done to “stop the hackers” because if a group of hackers is determined enough, they will achieve their goal. That’s kind of what they do: get around stuff and wreak havoc. What I am saying, though, is that there absolutely has to be some sort of commitment to safeguarding that information and doing more to protect it, somehow. If anything, this is important as a point of reassurance, that Sony really does care about you as a person.

Sad controller is sad.

1) Keep it Free!

Becoming and remaining a member of the PlayStation Network is free. Playing games online with your friends, exchanging messages, accessing the entirety of the PlayStation Store and using a whole litany of services like Hulu and Netflix are also free. All of this must remain free if the PlayStation Network wants to remain the Gold Standard. With the success of the PS3 in sales and the likelihood of gamers having to choose between the Next-Box 3 and PlayStation 4, there will be a few things consumers look to for tie-breakers.

Most obviously, games are important. If you like Halo and other shooters, you will probably prefer the Xbox 360. If you prefer character-focused action games like Uncharted and inFAMOUS, you will probably prefer the PlayStation 3 (these are both massive generalizations, yes.) However – if a group of gamers plays mostly multi-platform games like Call of Duty, Madden and others, going into the next generation – which console do they pick? I could be wrong, but if they can do something for free, or do something with a fee, I bet they pick the Gold Free Standard.

Let me know what you think of these reasons in the comments below, whether you disagree or agree. Let’s keep this conversation going. Class dismissed!

About the author

David Jagneaux

I am The Dean (Editor-in-Chief) of PlayStation University. As a lifelong lover of both playing games and communicating, I knew that gaming journalism was the perfect fit. Over the years I have honed these skills in order to distinguish myself as an ambitious and creative writer passionate about gaming and the games industry.

Readers Comments (5)

add a ton more features at sony’s expense….but keep it free still? yeah not very likely to happen….ive never understood people obsession with cross game chat,why would i ever want to talk with someone not playing the same game as me?you act as if muting annoying people in a lobby is some difficult task…if youre not willing to press 1 button then obviously that person isnt all that annoying to begin with…security,eh,sure the hack was not their finest hour,but xbox live accounts get hacked ALL the time…i know people that have lost half a dozen accounts due to hackers…sure more indie games are always nice…and installs are not a big deal,the longest pf them last what,6 minutes? usually spend that time getting all my stuff together(food,drinks,bong hit or two:)and by the time im done the game is ready to go…but back to the original point,implementing all these things would almost guarantee that psn would no longer be free,perhaps not a full on $60 a year,but some kind of charge,and that sir is no bueno

The XMB is the easiest thing to use but like you said its outdated I always wanted a xmb remake keep the format just make it flashy themes only take you so far. Security? What happened to psn blows and sony dropped the ball no doubt but to this day I have yet to hear about someone having their credit card info used. I read an article some time back about an xbox hacker talking about how easy it is to take over peoples xbl accounts. Cross game chat? Yeah it was the craze back then but if im not playing the same game as my friends I have nothing go talk to them about and if im playing uncharted or the last of us. I do t want to hear anything but the game. In game chat is all I need. As for psn to be free im all for it gaming online shouldnt cost another fee access to the store and buying apps should remain free but lets say sony does incorporate cross game chat sony has playstation plus as a paid service to plug into. ps+ is good as is adding features would be better as long as people can game for free.